May 30, 2007

I've said it before (somewhere here): Women know what their breasts look like in their clothes. It doesn't just happen. "Breast power" is real. We can pretend we don't know, but we do. That doesn't mean we have great judgment about how to use it. So let's see an attempt at devising some rules:

What looks sexy for a night out on the town may not be appropriate in the workplace. In fact, [Elisabeth] Squires said cleavage should never make an appearance in the office.

Even in the summer at the law school when there's almost no one around?

"It's way too big of a distraction for men and women," she said. "If cleavage isn't in your job description, don't put it in."...

Squires suggested that women also keep things respectable at family events, like a kids' soccer game....

Night is prime time to bring out breasts, but Squires suggested women treat their cleavage as part of their outfit -- not a focal point.

"You can certainly be a bit more daring," she said. "This presumably is adult time, and cleavage is powerful. This is the time to use it. But they should be part of your whole look."

Okay, so night time is the "prime time." Clearly, there are other times. What are they? Hanging about cafés in the summertime? Catching a light lunch with a former President? We need to know.

Breasts are something that women can minimize or maximize. One friend has D breasts and her daughter A size breasts. They don't look that different much of the time, with the mother minimizing the appearance of hers and the daughter maximizing hers.

Most men are wired a certain way, and seeing a lot of breast, esp. a lot of cleavage (or worse) are distracted. And because of that, some of the women are distracted because of this unfair advantage with the men, etc.

If I am working, I would rather not be faced with the constant sexual stimulation of a lot of cleavage.

Of course, it depends on what you do. For the most part, I consider cleavage totally inappropriate for most professionals, like doctors, lawyers, etc. But their receptionists? Maybe.

When someone demands the right to show a lot of cleavage, I think that you have to ask why? They know what it does to men. Of course, many pretend that that isn't true, or that somehow the men can control it. They can't. So why do they do it? To get attention, etc. But why should a woman using her sexual lures at work, at church, etc. to get male attention be acceptable?

Of course, everything is relative. What was daring a couple of years ago doesn't really raise eyebrows these days. And if the men aren't looking twice at some level of cleavage, then I don't really see a problem with it.

Someone should write a book on women's breast. They are consistently used by women for various purposes and sometimes unconsciously.

As a male, my attention is drawn to a well shaped woman. Not only her breast, but legs, hip proportion, and face all are visual stimuli that are often very difficult of discount. Studies have shown this is a very primitive reflex. I have found that too much negates the reflex. In Vegas I saw 30 women on stage topless, yet I was more drawn to a woman that was clothed but showing just a little.

Women obviously use their breast to attract but they also seem to use them in confrontation with other women. I have seen situations in which women are together without men present and they will often dress or display themselves to try for a visual advantage among their peers. Likewise, if they get mad, they will often stick out their chest and flare their breast at another woman.

So it is one more tool that women have to reduce men to the lowest common denominator.

There is so much more cleavage out there now. My son's female schoolmates display it almost every day from what I can tell. So do their moms. So do their female teachers. I can't imagine how high school boys learn anything!

Cleavage seems to be immune to the laws of supply and demand. When it was less available to see, I was always distracted by it. Now that it's ubiquitous, I'm still distracted by it. And will be, til the moment an attractive nurse shuts off my respirator 50 years from now.

When I was but a sophmore in high school, a friend of mine, a senior, warned me about girls who would come up to us geeky types and put their ta-tas in your face, leaning over your desk in study hall, asking you for something because the answer would always be y-yes.

If I am working, I would rather not be faced with the constant sexual stimulation of a lot of cleavage.

Of course, it depends on what you do. For the most part, I consider cleavage totally inappropriate for most professionals, like doctors, lawyers, etc.

Yes, sexy female doctors, nurses and lawyers should dress like very professional doctors, nurses, and lawyers. Mmmm. That turns me on even more. I always had a thing for Dr. Susan Lewis and Nurse Hathaway on ER.

I'm remembering a girlfriend who took two or three weeks to adjust to her new personal space after a substantial boob job. Discombobulating to have her new pair bumping up against me every time we talked. I can't imagine what she was doing to the guys.

Maybe it is generational, but I found it so hard to be taken seriously as a professional woman 30 years ago that the idea of showing cleavage or wearing anything tight was an anathema.

Why does all this remind me of the Victorian-era belief that even the sight of a woman's leg was enough to drive men into wild frenzies of sexual misbehavior - In fact, table skirts were (per the History channel) developed to prevent men from going berserk at the sight of a shapely piece of furniture support - they look too much like legs.

Apparently, the sight of a breast or even cleavage is simply too much for us to deal with intelligently!

Its about women's response. The more important part of the game is status display to other women.

In an environment where you know nearly everyone, an inch more or less than usual is being yourself. When you are with strangers and possible competitors, dress, makeup, shoes, jewellery and overt sex appeal assert your status and invite others to either make an obvious conclusion about teir own relative status, or feel the chill wind of competition.

When someone's status is built on professionalism and hard work, and she is in her workplace and extended professional circle, tit-based attention grabs by socially near-equal strangers are about as courteous as fishing with grenades.

Orion: No one said men didn't have to control their behavior. They can and they do. That doesn't mean women don't have a powerful effect on men. The "uncovered meat" imams were failing to make that distinction.

I wonder if Naomi Wolfe thinks that this increasing exposure of cleavage has decreased men's libidos. Maybe all these cleavage enhancing bras lead men to have unrealistic expectations for breasts that just can't be met by the average woman, once the wonderbra is taken off.

I must admit, I don't do a lot of left brain thinking about cleavage. When I think about it at all, I'm not usually aware of thinking about it or how it came to my attention to begin with unless somebody is being very inappropriate or my wife elbows me for staring.

Back several decades ago, various organizations really came down hard on Hollywood for the amount of violence in some of the old cop shows (i.e. Starsky and Hutch, Baretta, etc.) So their response was to quit showing so many cop shows and replace them with more 'T and A' (showbiz lingo for breasts and behinds.)

So today, a story comes out about how a committee at the University of Colorado is recommending firing Ward Churchill for plagiarizing research, except that it is a committee which the University established only after Dr. Churchill's 9/11 apalling screed and in essence tasked with finding a reason specifically to fire him, and all of a sudden this is the third blog written by someone in academia today, which has avoided anything that might be politically the least bit controversial, in deference to-- that's right, T and A.

No one said men didn't have to control their behavior. They can and they do. That doesn't mean women don't have a powerful effect on men.

It is not what men do that is really important here. There are plenty of laws on the books to prevent men from doing much of anything about seeing prominent uncovered breasts in inappropriate situations.

Rather, it is what they think. That is something that cannot be regulated, nor to some great extent, controlled by the men.

The reality is that men are wired to react to female sexual displays. What they do about it is another story. Nevertheless, most women know very well that they do this to men by displaying their breasts. That is a good part of why women do it - for the power it has to open doors and male wallets.

As for the competition of women amongst themselves, again, it depends on the power it has over men. Women don't impress women nearly as much by having nice toes, etc. Large (but not excessively large) breasts are threatening to women because of the other woman's ability to attract men with them.

While breast power is a fact of life, and responsible use makes sense, I have to admit that this kind of discussion just makes me uncomfortable. I'm looking over my shoulder, waiting for the burkas.

Well, maybe just a chador. I think that we can live with seeing women's eyes.

Seriously though, I have always suspected that the reason for such dress codes, probably more associated with Islamic societies today, but common with our own in the past, is that it decreases the sexual tension between the sexes. Of course, seggregating the sexes, as many Moslem cultures do today, also has that effect. And importantly, it reduces the pressure on males.

On a first level, it benefits men to have women covered like that because the men don't have to spend as much of their lives sexually stimulated. Maybe not to the point of physical stimulation, but at least to the level of thinking, at least for a moment, "oh, I wouldn't mind having sex with her".

But it has some benefit for women too. The problem with a woman running around visually sexually stimulating men with their attire, or lack thereof, is that when men are visually attracted this way, as they naturally are, to a woman they see the woman as a sex object, if only for a moment. But those moments add up, and that is the problem.

Note that I am not suggesting that women here be forced to wear burqas or chadors, or anything close. But rather, that they addressed a real problem - that males are wired to be visually stimulated by females, and that if that visual stimulation is reduced, women are less likely to be objectified.

If you think covering women makes men stop thinking about them sexually, you need to read this. If just covering the hair can drive a man wild, well . . . the burqa could solve Naomi Wolf's problem: you wouldn't have to actually look like a porn star, just leave it to the male imagination. It equalizes women, too -- gone is that unfair (dis)advantage . . .

Seriously, there has to be a happy medium between brown-bagging your body and shrink-wrapping it. Both overemphasize the body. Women should not (in free countries) be voluntarily cooperating in the reduction of themselves to their bodies. At the same time it remains a potent, er, asset and weapon. But there's something to be said for "concealed carry." There's a time and a place for everything -- in the work or schoolplace, sexuality should recede into the background, where it will of course continue to simmer. At a dance club, on the other hand . . .

Appropriate? What do you think? Having been a decently endowed but mousy, withdrawn and forgettable high-school girl, I went to my 30th reunion dressed like Tina Turner. God, that was fun.

I'm not so sure about that. I think they're saying a person (in the case of their argument, men) can only be expected to control their desires but so much, and beyond that it is unreasonable to expect them, even if it is possible, to do so. Proponents of gay marriage often make the argument that even if engaging in homosexual behavior (or, less likely, being gay) is a matter of choice, it is an essential enough way of being or central enough exercise of autonomy or rooted enough accretion of social conditioning for it to be unfair to impose the burden of change, so some institution equiavlent to marriage should be available for those who for whatever reason have found themselves on that path. If the argument works for gay men, it should work for straight men (if we believe in equality), so it's rather easy to note that heterosexual men, as a deafult, love-a the ladies and shouldn't have to change how rowdy and boisterous the naked la-ladies a-make-a the men. In other words, it's natural. Now, you could also make the case that it's natural for women to bedizen themselves with bedazzling baubles and they have done so since time immemoriam and so too have they worn skimpy clothes for attention. You might also note that it's natural to make the beast with two backs. In fact, you might note that all this talk about how humans should control their sexual desires is the unnatural part, and this shifting the blame for the consequences of sexual desires from men to women is ahistorical and absurd. Both men and women like sex and sex keeps the species going. Less talk, more action.

In other words, cats like uncovered meat and meat likes uncovering itself for cats. Meow!

If the argument works for gay men, it should work for straight men (if we believe in equality), so it's rather easy to note that heterosexual men, as a deafult, love-a the ladies and shouldn't have to change how rowdy and boisterous the naked la-ladies a-make-a the men.

Surely you're not serious? How does an argument about equal rights and fair treatment for all citizens equate to an argument that men shouldn't be requred to behaved as civilized adults?

Ah breasts. One strange part of my job is discussing sexual attractiveness and the attentending potential pitfalls with women and girls who were sexually abused.

Some of these young ladies come to the office barely clothed. One young lady recently had cleavage that went past her bra strap. So we discuss what it is like having boys and men stare at their breasts, how it feels good if the attention is from a person they are interested in, how it feels yucky if it is not a person they are interested in. How they typically hate being touched without their permission.

It is interesting for me in that I am clueless to this experience. It is also interesting to note the tension between inviting sexual attention but retaining the right to control sexual touch. I have found that just having the conversation and listening is often helpful for the young ladies.

It is frankly easier to discuss the topic of those pants that have writing on the girl's bottom. I get in the room and ask "What does it say on your pants?"

"Princess" or whatever the letters spell is the reply.

"Nope. It says "look at my ass and think about touching it" I correct them.

They laugh, we blush, and then discuss the pros and cons of sexual attractiveness and how they are treated.

But when a colleague was wearing tight and revealing clothes at an adolescent treatment group where I used to work, I asked her to consider her stimulus value and how it was contributing to the group milieu. She looked at me quizzically. A mature black woman coworker laughed and said "He is just trying to tell you to put some damn clothes on without being an asshole. Them boys are drooling on themselves thinking about your titties in them hoochie clothes."

She dressed VERY differently after that. I wish I could have given the black woman a raise.

To your other question, I wouldn't say I really "wrote" it. Of course, neither did The Voice of His Generation himself, right? "Intertextualized," I believe it is called. Add a banjo strum and a mouth harp, call it a folk song, add a PD symbol, and hope it gets a notice at the A-house.

So thanks. Good for a giggle from the Blogging Diva herself (without disturbing the mighty Vortex) I hope.

ps: Any chance you can get Ruth Anne in there with the two of you on that particular edition of BloggingBabes, I mean, Heads? (I know, I know -- Greed... Lust... Deadly Sins.)

Rev wrote: "I'd like to point out that part of "civilized behavior" is dressing appropriately at the office."

Touche! And when I leave the car unlocked and someone steals my ipod, I have to be at least a little upset with myself if I am honest. The cop taking the report will surely say something like "The car was unlocked and the ipod was in plain view? Are you stupid or something?"

And when I leave the car unlocked and someone steals my ipod, I have to be at least a little upset with myself if I am honest.

Not really the same thing, there. A comment or a look isn't equivalent to a theft.

A person who comes to work dressed provocatively is either (a) not that bright, (b) lacking in class, or (c) seeking attention. Bitching because someone guessed "c" when the actual answer was "a" or "b" isn't really fair. If I showed up to work wearing skin-tight pants that showed off my anatomy, I'd certainly expect stares and comments.

Rev, you are right, and I was not clear or specific with my point. I was comparing the theft to being touched. It would have helped had I mentioned that a single bit, or even alluded to the fact, but in a typical ADD moment, I left it out completely.